The salary for the position was negotiated among the Pastoral Search, Stewardship, and Personnel Committees and reflected all of the strengths and weaknesses of a multi-committee approach. Practically, the PSC advocated for a highest salary while the Stewardship committee advocated for a more affordable (from the church's perspective) amount. We knew that the amount of the salary would be quite a bit less than our previous pastor's package. This reduction was necessary for a couple of reasons. First, as I've noted, the experience level of the candidate was substantially less than our previous pastor. Our candidate had two years of experience verses the four decades of pastoral experience that his predecessor had. Second, the size of our church had contracted substantially. We averaged around 450 in attendance when our previous pastor was called compared to around 200 today.
So I sat down with the chairs of the two other committees. The Personal Committee chair was on the Pastor Search Committee, and the Stewardship Chair was Brother James. After an extended conversation, we settled on a salary that we felt we could take before the church. We based a good deal of our decision based on the salary range that the Kentucky Baptist Convention had developed. It’s gone now, but a similar comparison is located at the Lifeway website. There’s still an outstanding site on all these issues located at the Kentucky Baptist Convention.
(I’m intentionally leaving out the candidate from this discussion. When we raised a general salary figure for him he said “I trust that the church will be fair and compensate me at a level where I can support my family in your community.” Words that every PSC chairman hates to hear!)
So as a PSC, we then recognized that the challenge would be in educating the congregation about the strange beast that is the pastor's salary.
Most workers pay only ½ of their social security taxes with their employers paying the other half. But because pastors are self employed, they have to pay both sides of their Social Security taxes. In addition, when employees of a company pay for their own health insurance they are subsidized in part by their employer. That's why when you leave your job but must maintain your insurance, your COBRA payments are so substantial. For the first time you are paying for this insurance unsubsidized by your employer.
So when we presented the package it to the church, the first number we emphasized was the salary
Salary $XX,XXX
+ social security taxes *
+ a portion of insurance **
+ matching a portion of retirement benefits ***
+ car allowance (mileage)
Total Package: $XX,XXX
*We emphasized that the candidate was responsible for paying his taxes.
**We didn't feel it was wise to commit to paying for all of his health insurance, because the insurance rate continues to rise.
***We wanted to encourage him to set aside a portion for retirement, so as a church, we committed to match his funds up to a specified percentage of his salary.
So by listing salary first, instead of package, we tried to emphasize to the church that they should focus on the salary total, not the package total.
We also specified time for conducting revivals, for taking vacations, time for conference travel. We gave him flexibility in these, but require him to take 2 weeks of vacation a year. (So for example, he could take more than 2 weeks vacation, but have one less week of revival for the year.)
Some thoughts on pastoral compensation:
1. Get comparative numbers based on churches the same size. Use associational resources to help you with this. It also helps for the associational missionary to come in and discuss compensation with the appropriate committee.
2. Have a couple of committees put the package together. The more people you have invested in the process, the more voices you will have to explain the result when it comes up for a vote.
3. Commit to revisit the package every year. Some salaries are set when a pastor first arrives and then never get revisited. Then things continue until either he must bring it up, or he leaves because he could no longer afford to stay. The Personnel committee should examine the compensation of all church ministers every year.
Other thoughts??
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3 comments:
You folks have performed well. I hope your numbers reflect the effort presented.
Side note...I appreciate your recognition that pastors do have to leave because of money issues. Please revisit the issue annually if you desire a long term connection with this fellow. If not....
When time allows check out our church website and an article posted by the executive director of VA Baptists. These tenuous times are creating significant challenges for the church and turmoil is often the result.
www.bealembc.org
DD
Taran,
This is one of the most difficult, but probably most necessary, areas when churches and candidates are in discussion.
I've always felt that it is an unfair question to ask a prospective pastor, "How much do you need/expect for the church to pay you?" First of all, the pastor cannot intelligently answer this question unless he is from the same general area. There are variables that always come into play, and without having lived in a certain area, he doesn't know what the cost of living is. Nor does he know what will happen with the economy or other places. While PSC chairs hate to hear the response that your candidate gave, it is probably the best answer from his standpoint.
Secondly, aside from the basic research that the candidate has done, he really has no knowledge of the financial situation of the church.
Also, many pastors are hesitant to set a specific dollar amount for fear of appearing mercenary or avaricious.
My preference when talking with a church has been that the church determine what is best for the church. There should be a "top dollar" amount that the church should agree on that will not interfere with the on-going ministry of the church (including obligations such as loans, utilities, and on-going salaries), but will allow some room to consider even a more experienced man. What is broached with the candidate will be more in line with his personal experience than the "top dollar".
One of the dangers that many churches fall into is to set the bar too high because they think that they must offer much more in order to attract a more attractive candidate. Another danger is to let the candidate hold the church captive with an unrealistic package.
Your solution to many of these problems (as throughout the process) is very workable. My experience with committees is that the amount offered should probably fall somewhere between the dreams of the PSC and the skepticism of the finance committee.
Thanks for sharing. I hope that churches who are in the process will be able to use your posts to educate them in their search for a new pastor.
DD,
Great article, thanks for passing it along. It will be interesting to see how churches react to the financial anxiety surrounding society today.
Benjie,
You've given me much to consider. I would recommend that any pastoral candidate do an online cost of living comparison between the two communities.
My assumption would be that most candidates would be punting on the financial issues because they are uncomfortable discussing them for fear of looking too avaricious (to use your delightful word). But you offer some good reason why that is not necessarily the case.
And I do hope to eventually clean up and organize this series and that it could eventually be a help to others.
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